Preußens Gloria
by Mestophilies
Summary: AU 1918 is ending and World War I has come to a close. In the darkness of defeat and revolution, can Gilbert find a reason to keep hoping? Prussia X Hungary
1. 11 November 1918

Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia. Otherwise, Gilbert and Elizabeth would have married and lived happily ever after.

* * *

The course of human history has rarely ever run smooth. Violence, plague and pestilence have wrought their marks upon the world, spurred on by natural disasters or manmade catastrophes. Men have warred with men for untold ages, for land, for wealth, for an ideology or for their very survival. Empire have risen to the pinnacle of the world and fallen into the Abyss in their turn; prey to time, hubris, war, decadence, revolution or their own foolhardiness.

The invincibility and immortality of a nation may last as short as a day – before being wiped off the face of the earth. In 476 AD, the Roman Empire fell from its seat as the greatest power the world had ever seen, plunging the Italian Peninsula into disunity and chaos for over a thousand years. In 1279 the Mongol Empire, ranging from the Sea of Japan to shores of the Danube River, began its cataclysmic descent from grace through infighting and the fragmentation of the world empire. In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated at Waterloo, marking the end of the glorious French Empire.

During the turmoil of the Seven Year's War and the Napoleonic Wars, the kingdom of Prussia, once a provincial backwater compared to the likes of Russia and France, had found its wings. Rising to new heights, it defeated some of the premier powers of Europe, upsetting the traditional balance of power of the Continent. Under Frederick the Great, Prussia became a military power unrivalled in the field until its defeat at the hands of Napoleon. Under Bismarck and Moltke the Elder, it would become the industrial and political leviathan of Continental Europe as the German Empire, its military prowess able to individually dominate the other Great Powers with ease. As time passed, however, even this mighty nation had to fall.

The blow was struck in 1918. The German Empire fell to revolution and ruin, its monarch abdicating and escaping to neutral Holland. Hand in hand, the royal Prussian eagle fell with the empire, the kingdom being ground to dust under the millstone of the Weimar Republic. Monarchists, conservatives and traditionalists wept for it whilst the rest of the country rejoiced. In a mansion on the outskirts of regal Potsdam, seat of the Hohenzollerns for centuries, one man was far too shaken – too plunged in his own despair – to weep.

His nation had fallen – what had happened to it? – his people, his children, in anarchy and starving. The Hohenzollerns no longer reigned. Chaos was everywhere. Gilbert couldn't think. Only the incessant questions; why and how; rang through his head. He had no answer to them. His mind was not working. He felt numb all over – too numb. He slowly rose from the chair at which he sat and attempted to walk to his kitchen to get a stiff drink. His feet did not respond to the whims of his mind and he tumbled forwards. Lying flat upon the floor, he could only hear his shallow breaths and the dull thud of his own heart. Beating, beating, its sound reminded him of the heavy march of a thousand booted feet. He knew the sound well – and it soothed him.

Slowly, he raised himself off the ground. The effort seemed beyond his grasped and he collapsed again. He lay there – how long he couldn't remember – unmoving. He might have been mistaken for a corpse, were the sound of his breathing inaudible: he lay so still. Minutes passed. He breathed. Once more he tried to raise himself from the floor. This time he succeeded, shakily and unsteady, but he was on his feet. As he did so, however, a wave of nausea consumed him. H swayed on his feet, his eyes clenched shut, trying to dispel the horrid feeling – to no avail. He staggered forward, desperate to reach the toilet. By luck or miracle he reached it, bracing himself against the toilet and emptied the contents of his stomach. The air was filled by the sound of his retching.

When he had finished, he felt weaker than he had in a long while. His entire body shook uncontrollably as he rose, moving to the sink. Washing out his mouth under a stream of frigid water, he gazed at himself in the mirror. Tired red eyes, ringed with dark shadows, gazed back at him in a face that seemed too old and worn to be his own. His white hair was also in a mess, limp and unkempt; his skin was pale, looking more akin to the white of his hair than its usual healthy tinge. In truth he felt as tired as he looked. All he wanted was to sleep – and perhaps never wake up again. He had nothing left – his country had fallen; his people were in turmoil; his king vanished – what had he left?

'_I'm sure Old Fritz is turning in his grave right now,_' he thought. The thought of how disappointed his favourite king might have felt at the situation helped clear his mind. He felt disgusted at himself; disgusted at the weakness of his mind, his body, and by extension, his country. He was mighty Prussia, not some pathetic weak little boy – he wasn't _Russia_ for god's sake! He rose, straightening to his full height, a look of defiance fixing itself to his face. He had fought tooth and nail as a country to stay alive and rise as a great power – against France, against Austria, against Britain and against Russia. He had clawed his way past them all; through all the strife and turmoil, he had risen to his height. Prussia would not fall!

Yet it had. This thought rang in his mind once more, and his posture became less confident. Prussia had fallen. That much was fact. It was no longer a separate power in the Europe. It no longer controlled the empire. It was now nothing more a single province of Ludwig's Germany. Gilbert never resented his brother. On the contrary, he had never had cause to dislike Ludwig, having technically given birth to him by unifying Germany. Now however, Gilbert was filled with dread. As a province, Gilbert was now at Ludwig's mercy, just as so many other Germanic nations had been at his several decades ago. He had asked them to live as civilians in Germany, but otherwise, their status as nations had altogether ceased to exist. Gilbert wondered if Ludwig would do the same to him. He couldn't imagine dear Ludwig doing it to the man who virtually raised him as both a younger brother and an ersatz son, but Gilbert knew that, at the very least, his time has Prussia was now at an end.

That final thought caused him to howl with a fury that would have been more suited to Ivan. His fists smashed into the mirror, sending a rain of shattered fragments onto the cold floor. A pain shot through both his hands as he felt the jagged mirror-shards pierce them. The pain caused his anger to slowly disappear, leaving him with a hollow feeling in his chest. It wasn't fear, but it still chilled him to the bone. He shivered. He missed the old patriotic fervour that usually burned in his heart and gave him the boldness he needed to go forth and conquer. Without it, he felt frighteningly vulnerable. Looking about the house, he felt uneasy and unfamiliar.

It was no longer his home. He had to leave.

* * *

An hour later, Gilbert stood before what used to be his home, dressed in the finest old Prussian uniform – from the Seven Year's War- he had. Strapped to his left side was a finely polished and sharpened officer's sword; sitting proudly on his head, a handsome tricorne. He held a large bag in his right hand, filled to bursting with several sets of uniforms as well as oddments and mementos of better times; from manuscripts and letters from various old friends: Hegel, Goethe, Bismarck and Old Fritz; to trinkets and jewellery that were worn by various nobles that he had liked. A rolled up Prussian flag and a needle-gun from 1870 were the final things he had placed in the sack, poking out awkwardly of an opening in the bag. With these, he turned away from his mansion, preparing to begin his long journey southwards.

Behind him, his mansion looked empty and worn out as it stood, the curtains being drawn closed, while the sun began setting behind its battlements. Perhaps it was a reflection of himself. He felt more tired than he could remember ever being, but in true Prussian fashion, he never faltered in his soldierly march. He passed the Potsdam City Palace and the Nikolas Church within the hour, gazing at them with a pang of nostalgia – he had seen them built after all; seen them inhabited and visited by those kings and people whom he loved best: _his_ people.

Continuing his march, he saw a crowd amassed by a stone statue of Frederick William I of Prussia. Some were shouting slogans and calling for reforms by its pedestal; a larger number were trying to tear the monument down. Wrapped in cords and ropes, the larger-than-life statue was teetering on the brink of destruction, but – with typical Prussian spirit – stubbornly refused to fall over, returning to its position once the crowds began to lose steam. Gilbert smirked, perhaps for the first time since he had heard news of the end of the Great War.

'_Good old Solder-King_,' he thought with fond remembrance. The second King in Prussia had never been a favourite of his, but nonetheless, Gilbert liked him far more than the rest of his family, save the Great Elector, Frederick William I, the first King in Prussia, Frederick I, and Old Fritz himself. '_Those were the good old days_.'

However, by this time, more cords and lines had been wrapped around the statue. After several more minutes of bitter tugging and fierce teetering, the statue toppled to the ground. Stone fragments littered the floor as a ragged cheer came from the mob. Men began shouting again, trying to whip the crowd up into a frenzy. Gilbert looked on bitterly, before approaching one of the pieces of stone. Scooping it up with his free hand, he pocketed it quickly, before turning away. He heard a shout behind him and looked back. Several of the men had seen his uniform and were running towards him. All wore coats or hats emblazoned with a red star: symbols of the Spartacus League – only recently renamed the Communist Party of Germany.

Gilbert broke into a run, heading towards the centre of Potsdam. Shoving through the people who milled aimlessly hither and dither, he ducked into a side alley between a tailor's and a bakery. Breathing heavily, he stood perfectly still, waiting to see whether he had lost his pursuers. The approaching sound of booted feet stamping on to the cobbled street told him they were passing and he held his breath, closing his eyes in fear lest they find him. He heard shouting and confused voices right outside the alley. His free hand flew instinctively to his sword – he would not go down with a fight. After a few moments, he heard them, still shouting at one another, walk away.

Sighing with relief, Gilbert opened his eyes and cautiously peeked out of the ally to see if the coast was truly clear. The street was void of red stars. He knew the communists – or the socialists for that matter – certainly would ask some interesting questions if they caught him. After all, they had been the ones who started the November Revolution and brought down the empire. His fist shook with a rage that was nothing more than half-hearted. He unclenched his hand, letting it hang limply by his side as he approached the station. As he reached it, an exodus of soldiers from the front swept out of its doors. Some looked downcast; others were enraged; even more were laden with the horrors of the trenches: missing limbs and eyes, bandages and blood were to be found on most of them. Only two looked gleeful that the war had ended and as he passed, one spat at him in the face, berating him as an imperial relic and a threat to the liberal, democratic and socialist system.

Gilbert wiped his face with a handkerchief, a look of utmost disgust on his features. He wanted to lash out, to draw blood in traditional fashion, but a hollow fear stilled his hand. This was how people looked at Prussia, it seemed and it brought him to new levels of depression. Even in the very seat of the Hohenzollerns, Prussia was now a hated concept. He bought a train ticket to Berlin for several Papiermarks – there he would get a train out of the country. It was a dear price compared to several years ago: he probably could have bought a dozen tickets for about the same price in 1914, but he was too tired to care at the moment. The man at the counter looked at him with distain or suspicion; Gilbert couldn't tell which.

'_Probably the uniform_,' he thought as he took the ticket, '_at least I've still got a very full purse with me_.' This last thought made him smile, if only very slightly.

Walking to the platform, he waited for the train to arrive. Judging by the clock that hung from the ceiling, the train was immensely late – by rights, he should been late, having missed it by a hair. He should have seen it disappear into the distance, but no: there was nothing; no fading sound of a speeding engine, no steam cloud showing where it had left. Suddenly he heard a uniformed man with a loudspeaker shouting, "the train to Berlin has been delayed by ten minutes. Please wait patiently if you are boarding that train." Gilbert sighed and waited, gazing about. The platform was, in truth, woefully empty. The few people who stood waiting were mostly dressed in rags; the sweeping dresses and top hats of the 1800s nowhere in sight. He felt more out of place than ever.

The steam locomotive finally pulled itself into the station, a billow of steam and the sound of slowing pistons filling the air. A rumpled-looking conductor flung open the doors to the carriages and Gilbert boarded. Finding an empty compartment, he sat down, placing his bag on the seat next to him and gazing out the window. Several minutes later, the doors were closed and the train, with a whistling of pipes and another burst of steam, began to laboriously head towards Berlin Main Station. Picking up speed, it rumbled past the various houses and sights, before leaving Potsdam entirely. Trees filled Gilbert's window as he gazed out of it, lost in thought.

The P8 locomotive arrived in Berlin under the hour and Gilbert disembarked. Brushing his coat off, he hurried to the ticket office to purchase another ticket. This time, the ticket officer refused to let him buy one. "We ain't sellin' to 'em nobility or royalty 'ere," he said imperiously. Gilbert blanched. The officer stood up and pointed to a sign that proclaimed, "By order of the peoples' committee, all members of the noble and imperialistic classes are forbidden to travel out of the country without a permit. No tickets are to be sold unless relevant papers, undersigned by the local party committee, have been presented to the relevant officials."

Gilbert eyed his impressively long moustache with a dazed fascination, choosing not to answer. "You got a permit?" the man asked with a superior gaze. The man tapped imperiously at the sign, before pointing to a red armband he wore on his left upper arm. "Spartacus League orders. If you ain't got membership, you ain't gettin' a permit. An' without a permit, you ain't gettin' on a train." Gilbert scowled, before simply turning away with soldierly about-turn and angrily marching away.

'Damn these revolutionaries,' he thought. He would get to his destination – permit or no permit. Of that he was determined.

He walked nonchalantly onto the platform and boarded the final carriage before the luggage car. When the locomotive began its journey, Gilbert quietly entered the luggage compartment and hid behind a particularly bulky mound of bags. Lying down on the floor, his bag at his feet, he tried to get comfortable. He rather wished to be back at home, sleeping in his bed, but home no longer existed for him. Finally, with that feeling of emptiness in his hear, Gilbert curled up and drifted into an uneasy sleep, as the train rattled and roared towards once lovely Silesia and the now German-Czechoslovakian border and beyond.

* * *

First Hetalia fic! Please enjoy and review!


	2. Forgotten In Their Fall

Disclaimer: Hetalia's not mine, obviously.

* * *

The conductors discovered Gilbert fast asleep just after the train passed Liberec Station. One kicked him sharply in the ribs, causing him to wake from his fitful sleep. Disorientated, he blinked up at them, wincing as he heard the larger of the two cracking his knuckles menacingly. Closing his eyes again, he stood up, willing himself to look impassive. He said quietly, "They refused to sell me a ticket in Berlin."

The shorter – he looked like a Karl to Gilbert – snorted. "No reason fo' a respec'ble gen'leman like yo'self not ta 'ave one. Prob'ly some rich bas'ard wot wants ta' get outta 'ere afore dem commies take all yer stuff," he said, spitting on the floor as he did so. His companion nodded unpleasantly, a twisted smile on his face. Karl continued, "we ain't commies, bu' we don't like rich bas'ards either. Rudy, let's teach 'im a lesson."

And they did.

* * *

Three full hours later, Gilbert laid half-dead and face-down beside the tracks, his bag thrown down beside him. His chest shook as each paper-thin breath was painfully drawn into his lungs. Fist sized bruises, belt-whip welts and cuts of all description cover every inch of his pale skin. They had the grace to strip him down to his skin before they beat him; now his clothes were haphazardly thrown over him, crumpled and creased but not damaged. Other than that, he was buck-naked on the cold hard ground.

The two asses had taught him a lesson he had learned a long time ago, but it never made it any easier. Having once been a nation, he had been scarred, burned, tormented in more ways than could be conceived, but these had never stopped him. He was the country. Countries did not die if burned, sacked or ravaged by illness and disease. Countries persevered through their people. On the other hand, if their people renounced their county – Gilbert's situation was the result.

As a country he had been effectively invincible – if beaten he could recover; if struck down by plague, he would rise again; if destroyed by war, he would gather his strength and retaliate in time. Now he felt naked and vulnerable, having been forsaken by his people and thus stripped of all the vestiges of power he once had. Beaten and battered by a pair of punks when he had triumphed so often over armies that could have annihilated all but Prussia, he felt ashamed of himself, as though he had embarrassed the very memory of Prussia by being beaten so easily. He shivered; he was falling ill, he could tell; weakening with every breath and he was letting it be.

He hated himself for it.

Gilbert curled up as the cold air began to nip at his skin. He could barely feel it, but he wished – how he wished – he could just sink into the very earth and never be found again. As the wind began to pick up, Gilbert slowly, gingerly, tried to stand up. A wave of pain consumed him, and he fell back, gasping for breath. Weakness echoed though his form as self-disgust rang and reverberated in the cavern of his mind. He closed his eyes, wanting to lie there and disappear from the world.

Just as he was about to give up entirely, the sound of marching feet and turning wheels began sounding in his ears. Opening one eye, he gazed about. The grassy land was barren of people or horses, but the sound did not disappear. Instead, it became louder, approaching where he lay. It soothed him for some reason, the sound being strangely familiar to his ears. The sound of drums and pipes, the clicking of military gear, and the sound of orders being barked out in true Prussian fashion were added to the increasingly glorious cacophony. Then in a sudden burst of memory, Gilbert remembered.

He had been here before, on these very grounds. Opening his eyes, he could see, not endless fields and hills of grass and brush, but rather the ghosts of a memory that he had long forgotten in the troubles of today. Rank upon rank, file upon file of dark-blue uniformed soldiers, each armed with handsome shiny-new muskets, were marching gloriously across the land in countless columns towards Domstadtl where they would begin the siege. Muzzle-loading 12- and 24- pounder cannons were trundling along beside the men, their barrels gleaming as their wheels and carriages rattled, each drawn by pair of huge, muscular-looking horses. Prussian hussars rode between the infantry columns and the guns; their horses cantering impatiently, eager to be spurred into battle as the men who rode them looked towards the horizon with imperial dignity. The 'Borussia' was played on every instrument as the Prussian flag flew from every line, the Royal Eagle flying as it had never flown before.

Gilbert's eyes filled with tears at the sight of the army, his heart pounding with joy and loving remembrance.

He stretched out a hand to touch them, but it went straight through. He knew they were no ghosts, but a vivid memory, played for the nation the men had given life, honour, blood and tears to protect and raise. As they passed, each soldier turned his head to look at Gilbert, saluting as they did so. The horsemen took off their hats in salute, their horses neighing in delight. The last man passed him, and army was moved into the distance slowly before disappearing into smoke. However, one memory chose to remain. One horseman, wearing a handsome bicorne rather than the usual shako, stood unmoving in the wake of the army. Holding a regal-looking cane in one gloved hand, he removed his hat.

Old Fritz smiled down on Gilbert, raising his cane to the heavens in triumphal splendour. Gilbert felt stronger, the pain from his wounds becoming non-existent. His favourite child dismounted his horse and approached Gilbert in familiar grace, stretching a hand to him. Gilbert struggled to his feet and managed, despite his injuries, to slowly walk to Frederick. Frederick, instead of shaking his hand, drew him into an embrace, more comforting than a parent; more loving than a child; more familiar to Gilbert than all Prussian land put together.

Releasing him, Frederick stood as Gilbert remembered him: old but mighty, thoughtful and dignified, and his favourite child. But as Gilbert opened his mouth to speak, Frederick gave a roguish wink and vanished with the wind. A small breeze brought a quiet whisper of a voice to Gilbert before it too disappeared.

'_We live for Prussia; just as Prussia lives for us._'

Gilbert grinned. Standing alone in the fields, he gazed at the dying sun before getting dressed. Smoothing his clothes out and making himself look as best he could, he picked up his bag after having checked everything was still in one piece. As he began to walk, he sneezed loudly. Sniffing, he began to follow the tracks he knew would lead him into Brno at the heart of Moravia – no – Czechoslovakia.

* * *

Fields gave way to rolling hills and forest. He arrived at Brno four hours later, having marched his way unceasingly towards the city, his sneezes being now accompanied by coughs and sniffles. This time, he was greeted with, not angry scowls and a populace wallowing in misery. Instead of the hostility of the Berliners and the gloom of the Sudetenland-Germans in Liberec, Brno was buzzing in activity, despite the cold.

People were smiling and laughing, conversing happily in Czech rather than the German that had been prevalent only several months ago. Some were dancing together in the streets in national clothing; others were simply watching the proceedings with blissful expressions. Only the widows, completely dressed in black, and the invalids of the war seemed to be, understandably, unhappy, but they were few and far between on Brno main street. Banners with the new national flag of Czechoslovakia were hung from every window and wreaths had been placed upon every lamppost.

Gilbert shook his head wearily at the sight. Despite his hopes being buoyed up by the Memory-Fritz and -Prussian army, he was still tired, ill and truly in no spirits to deal with the euphoria of the city. As though to prove his illness, he sneezed loudly enough to attract stares from some of the people wandering around on the street.

However, that euphoria by no means caused the hatred of the Czech for Germans to diminish, but rather caused it to escalate. Regardless of the festivities, broken glass littered parts of the pavement, where German-own stores had been ransacked and lynched by Czechs, their owners having been driven out of town or being humiliated on the street. Gilbert stopped when he saw one middle-aged moustachioed man being thrown down onto the pavement by a group of angry men and women. The man was protesting in thick Sudeten German which served only to enrage the crown even more. They raised him up on their collective arms, preparing to dash his brains out onto the pavement.

Gilbert would have none of it. Quickly grabbing his needle-gun from his bag, Gilbert raised it, smartly as a drill officer at the crowd. They wavered when they saw the weapon, its steel muzzle gleaming menacingly at them. Gilbert's finger tightened on the trigger as he gazed unblinkingly on the crowd. In a voice that seemed to shake the ground with its righteous fury, Gilbert thundered, 'In the name of God put him down! Put him down or I will shoot!'

The entire street had gone silent – all eyes were on Gilbert and the mass of people – even the middle-aged man, who was about to be thrown down by the crowd, looked at the scene, astonished. Gilbert only gripped the rifle tighter.

No one breathed for a moment, waiting for the crowd. Gilbert inwardly prayed that they would listen and go away – in his weakened state, he doubted he could load fast enough to incapacitate even a few of them out before they managed to take him down. Suddenly, a flower, fallen from one of the wreaths hanging from a balcony above, fell and tickled the end of his nose.

His sneeze echoed through the street with the sound of a cannon exploding. His finger pulled the trigger of his rifle, the sound of the gunshot ringing with the sound of his sneeze, but the sneeze had ruined his aim. A flowerpot from one of the upper windows was shot off its perch and smashed onto the pavement with the loud crash of breaking porcelain.

The crowd scattered and women screamed. Chaos filled the street as Gilbert, having figured out what had happened, ran to get the man out of harm's way. Helping the man up, they both quickly dashed into a side-street, narrowly avoiding being trampled by a mass of frightened pedestrians. The man panted, wiping his brow with a handkerchief he produced from his breast pocket. Gilbert panted hard too – his illness had taken away the stamina and constitution that he had prized in both himself and the Prussian infantry of yore.

'Vielen Dank, my good sir,' the man said after a while, a smile spreading across his face.

Gilbert grinned, 'One German to another. We have to stick together in these difficult times, ja?'

The man nodded, before asking in the usual formal form of German, 'where do you come from, by the way? Your accent, it is not Austrian.'

'Germany is my homeland. Prussia is my home – all of liebe Prussia.'

'I see, a true German! My name is Ferdinand, Ferdinand Porsche,' he said, extending his hand to Gilbert.

Gilbert shook his hand firmly, 'Gilbert Beilschmidt. Dr. Porsche, I've heard your name countless times in the newspapers. Your race cars are fantastic.'

Porsche smiled, abashed, 'you flatter me, Herr Beilschmidt. I am only a humble car engineer.'

'And a man destined to become the greatest automobile designer of all time.'

Porsche shook his head modestly. Gilbert then noticed his clothes were torn and dirty from the excitement of the street. Porsche noticed his stare and said, with a rueful smile, 'I cannot find work in my dear Sudetenland, you see. This war is terrible for the economy!'

Porsche sighed, 'Perhaps I should return to Austria to try my luck there…'

Putting one hand on Porsche's shoulder, Gilbert said in a burst of inspiration, 'Dr. Porsche, I think you should come to Germany instead.'

Porsche surprised, only stared. Gilbert continued, 'Czechoslovakia is no longer friendly to us Germans and Austria has now become too small – your potential would only be stunted. Come to Germany, and I will guarantee you will find your true home in the homeland of all Germans.'

Porsche, a happy smile suffusing his face, agreed.

* * *

An hour later, Gilbert managed to get to Brno main station, having left half of his purse's contents with his new friend as well as sending a letter to Ludwig. In it, he wrote only that he was safe, travelling and that Ludwig was to keep an eye out for Porsche and to take care of him as though he were his own child, rather than Austria's.

Boarding the train was a difficult affair. Amazingly enough, the story of the showdown in the main street had spread across town and now had turned into a story that he had fired on the open crowd with an artillery piece and several machine-guns but missed them completely. Only a significantly large bribe would induce the conductors to let him on the train, seeing as the man at the booth had refused to sell him a ticket again. Taking his seat at the back, Gilbert waited.

The train finally began to hiss steam, the iron horse laboriously pulling the cars that trailed it, before picking up speed with a will. Roaring through the Moravian-Slovakian countryside, the train headed at full-speed towards its destination. This time though, it was headed for Bratislava station and from there, Gilbert would exchange trains to reach lovely Budapest, the most beautiful city on the Danube and the new capital of the lesser partner in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Hungary.

* * *

Next chapter is on its way and this time, yes it will be set in Hungary, if you couldn't work out which way he's going. :P

Btw, if anyone isn't familiar with the locations, Liberec is in Czech Sudetenland up in the North-West, Brno is on the eastern edge of the Czech Republic and Bratislava is in Slovakia, just past the Czech-Slovak border and down South.


	3. Convergence

Disclaimer: You know the drill by now. I don't own Hetalia.

* * *

The slowing rhythm of the train's motions was what told Gilbert that he was about to reach the station.

The trip had been mostly uneventful and he had been too wrapped up in his own thoughts to notice the sights that had passed by his window once the night gave way to the dawn. Old towers and crumbling fortress stood on rocky bluffs and peaks: once handsome abodes to ancient kings and feudal lords, now they stood dark and gothic, gazing down in grim emptiness upon the train when it had driven by. Thick woods had descended the great crags as though painted from an English watercolour, and the meandering rivers that danced in the deep valleys seemed scarcely real under a cloud-speckled blue sky that had been thrown into beautiful relief when morning came.

It was hard to believe that the greatest and bloodiest war ever fought on the face of the earth had ended only several days ago.

The train steamed to a halt when it drew up into the large covered platform of Budapest Main Station. Conductors shrilled their whistles, opening the carriage doors as a billow of steam rose all about in a dull haze. Gilbert wearily descended from the train, stretching his aching and tired muscles: he had spent the entire six hour journey sitting in the compartment and he longed to move about again.

All around him was movement: uniformed men carting heavy bags around; women young and old hurrying away to the front entrance of the station or waiting for some familiar face to pop out of the train. As for Gilbert, he made his way forward into the crowd, slinging his bag over his shoulder with Prussian efficiency and an anger that had arisen at the sight of several young men and women, all of whom had their arms wrapped around their loves and were weeping with joy at their reunion.

He looked away, frustration and envy boiling in his throat.

He looked away, for they reminded him of something he, the awesome Prussia, lacked and had longed for.

He looked away, for they reminded him of exactly why he had never visited Hungary since _that_ time.

As he reached the exit, he saw that the weather itself had turned for the worse. The once-cerulean morning sky had now become obscured by dark and heavy clouds that had been blown onto the city by a north-easterly gale. And while rain had yet to fall, the ominously rolling skyscape and rising winds told him that this would not be the case for much longer.

Gazing onto the clouds, Gilbert laughed, causing several passersby stare for a moment before walking on. It hadn't been a pleasant laugh, but rather one that was spiteful and arrogant, scornful and tormented all at once.

He did not fear the rain and never had. He had marched countless times under storm and hail, sleet and snow, to conquest. The weather had never deterred him in the past and he would never allow it to do so in future. In a black mood, Gilbert marched into the fiercest of the storm and disappeared in a sudden flash of dark lightning from the station.

* * *

Elizaveta sighed, as she lay down her pen. Despite the grandfather clock in her room having rung for noon, she felt tired enough to want to sleep a week away. She had been going over the draft legislation her country's, technically her, ministers had presented to the Austrian government declaring independence, changing certain phrases and tweaking clauses into a language that she knew Roderich would accept. Despite her country breaking away, she had yet to consider formally leaving her husband.

She looked into the crackling fireplace in her room and her lip turned into an unhappy frown.

Her husband.

Many, many years ago she would never have thought of those two words without an additional _dearest_ or even _darling_ slotted in between 'her' and 'husband'. It had already transformed years ago into a simple _dear_ after the war first started and now not even that. Of course she had known why, but even now she dared not dwell on it.

When she first married Roderich, she had loved him heart and soul. Those had been halcyon days despite the marriage being initially to appease their respective countries.

Roderich insisted, and she had said "yes".

Before, when most of the Germanic states were tiny principalities that squabbled like ill-tempered siblings, war had always been around the horizon, but it had remained almost an exciting diversion from the extravagance of the Austro-Hungarian Court. Certainly, it had never been so all-encompassing as this 'Great War', which was what most people had gotten used to calling it.

Roderich was never home nowadays, and even before the war he had busied himself far more in the workings of his country than he did with her. It wasn't that he didn't care about her, she could see the care and affection in his eyes whenever he looked at her: it was just that his first love would always be the Austrian state.

Elisaveta closed her eyes and rested on the back of her chair. When she looked back on it all, she realized he had always been like this; even from the start, when they had first married. 'For the good of our countrymen,' he had said as a toast at the wedding celebrations.

She opened her eyes and picked up her pen again. If she didn't get on with fixing the legislation now, she'd probably spend the entire evening doing it.

And she'd be damned if she was going to miss a wink of very-well-deserved sleep tonight.

* * *

"Hello? Speaking. What? Where to? I understand, Ludwig, but that man ought not to be allowed to wander wherever he wants. He's a country for god's sake! What? I see. Alright, I'll keep an eye out for him, but don't expect any miracles. Yes. Alright, alright. Goodbye."

Roderich unceremoniously dropped the receiver back onto the phone. If there was any one person he despised in all of Europe, it had to be Gilbert, who had gone off somewhere out of Germany for his own mad reasons, according to Ludwig. So long as he wasn't intending on coming to Austria, Roderich didn't much care where the bastard went. Nonetheless…

He picked up the phone again, turning the dial to the numbers he wanted. Since this was going to be a diplomatic call rather than a personal one, real names were usually discouraged.

"Hello? This is Austria. Can I speak to Netherlands, please? Yes, I'll hold."

Roderich drummed his fingers on the table.

"Hello, Netherlands. I'd like to know if you've seen any hint of Prussia recently. No, not in an invading sort of way. I mean, have you seen him as a person anywhere near your country? No? Not even with the Hohenzollerns? They arrived this morning, I believe. No? Alright. Thank you. Goodbye."

Again, Roderich put down the receiver. He closed his eyes thinking hard. If Gilbert hadn't gone to Netherlands or anywhere to the West of Germany, then that left East to Russia or South to… here. And since Gilbert's hatred of Ivan made going to Russia absolutely impossible…

Roderich slammed his fist on the table in a rare display of overt anger. If Gilbert was on his way into any of his former territories, Roderich knew he had to make preparations. He dialled another number and spoke into the receiver.

"Hello? Poland! How's your revolt going against the Germans? Good, good. Look. I've heard that Gilbert might be on his way over somewhere in my territories. Can you go wait at Hungary's old place in case the ass decides to go there? What? Easy! If you see him, use your imagination. I'm sure we both want to bury the hatchet _into_ him, yes? Alright. Call me if you see him. Goodbye."

* * *

And there we have it. The pieces are all coming into place and if you know the chronology of the Aftermath of WWI well enough, you can figure out what happens next.

I know I've made Roderich a bit of a villian, but can you deny that Gilbert wouldn't do the same if he were in Roderich's position?

Anyway, R&R people!


End file.
